A Surrey provincial court judge has found a driver who claimed he’d fallen unconscious prior to a traffic crash that put a woman in a coma guilty of two counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm.
Judge Jodie Harris found John Arthur Meeks guilty as charged in the crash, that happened at the intersection of Highway 17 and 56 Street in Delta on April 14, 2023.
“I conclude that Mr. Meeks intended to manoeuvre his car the way he did. I conclude that he did not intend to cause the collision in question. I do not know if he saw the red left turn signal but if he did not, he should have. In my view, he failed to foresee a significant foreseeable risk and take steps to avoid it,” Harris decided.
“I am satisfied that the Crown has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Meeks’ conduct was a marked departure from the standard of a reasonably prudent driver. A reasonable person would have foreseen the risk of his conduct and taken steps to avoid it. The failure to foresee that risk was not just a departure but a marked departure from the standard of care of a reasonable person in the circumstances.”
Harris noted the primary issue was whether Meeks was conscious in the five to ten seconds leading up to the crash and during it.
It was clear, dry and warm out on the afternoon Meek’s Ford F-150 collided with Sherry Fang’s Kia Soul. Rachel Price was her front-seat passenger. The pickup was turning left when its front passenger side hit the Kia.
“The collision was significant,” Harris noted in her reasons for judgment. “Multiple airbags deployed in the Kia and the front passenger seat belt tore because of the impact. The Kia suffered extensive front end and rear damage.”
The pickup also sustained extensive front-end damage with airbags deployed in it too. The crash was captured by dashboard cameras from the Kia and other motorists, the judge noted, “makes it clear that this collision was shocking and upsetting to those who observed it.”
Price was in a coma for a week and a half and wore a neck brace for six weeks. The PhD student in biochemistry suffered numerous injuries, among them a broken thighbone and hipbone, a severe foot injury requiring hardware to realign the bones, traumatic brain injury, a broken bone at the base of her skull, fractured vertebra, fractured ribs and a lung injury.
Fang testified that bruising on much of her body took one or two months to heal.
The court heard a motorist told police it appeared Meeks veered to the left as if he had passed out, though admitted this was a guess.
The defence tendered evidence from a doctor and EHS attendance that it argued should help the judge to find supports Meek’s claim he passed out likely because of a heart condition.
The Crown claimed Meeks told another EHS attendant the crash was his fault and he was looking at a map.
Harris was tasked with deciding if Meeks was unconscious leading up to or during the crash. She noted that Meeks testified he stopped at a light with about 10 vehicles in front of him going, glanced at his GPS and checked his mirrors.
“Mr. Meeks testified the light turned green, traffic started to go forward and that was his last memory,” the judge noted in her reasons. “His next memory was when he ‘came to’ in the vehicle which was after the motor vehicle collision. He said he did not know what had happened and said everything was confused and he could not really think. When he ‘came to’ he was bleeding from his forehead.”
During the trial Meeks was asked if he had intended to turn left at the intersection and and he replied no. He testified he does not have a memory of blacking out. “I have an absence of memory completely,” he told the court.
A motorist who pulled over to help Meeks told the court she found him fully conscious and described him as alert and aware. She said he told her he didn’t know how his truck got to that side of the road, didn’t recall the crash, but was able to converse, didn’t seem confused, but didn’t recall being knocked out or unconscious.
“On the totality of the evidence before me, I reject Mr. Meeks’ evidence that he blacked out in the five seconds leading up to the collision and that he was blacked out at the time of the collision,” Harris concluded. “Importantly, Mr. Meeks himself acknowledges that he cannot say for sure whether he ‘blacked out’ before the point of impact.”
She found, however, that Meeks “has no memory of the relevant portions of the accident.”
Harris noted that “all the witnesses in this trial say that Mr. Meeks was conscious within moments of the collision having occurred.”
“There is no evidence that Mr. Meeks lost consciousness at all aside from his one statement that he was ‘out,’ which must be considered in conjunction with his repeated comments that he has no memory of the collision.”
She concluded that in the five seconds leading up to the collision, based on data evidence before her, Meeks “was engaging and disengaging with the accelerator including ongoing pressure changes. He maintained a relatively consistent and slow speed. He engaged and disengaged his brake twice. In my view, to make those movements and actions, Mr. Meeks must have been conscious.”
“On all the evidence before me, Mr. Meeks’ evidence that he was ‘out’ at some point in the five seconds leading up to the collision does not leave me with a reasonable doubt as to his consciousness at that time,” Harris decided. “When I consider the CDR evidence, the dashcam video evidence, and the evidence of those who dealt with him at the scene, I am satisfied that the Crown has proven that he was actually engaged with the brake, the gas and the steering throughout what would have been a good left-hand turn if he had completed it.”